


Something Wrong

by seratonation



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-04
Updated: 2008-05-04
Packaged: 2017-11-02 06:22:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seratonation/pseuds/seratonation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something wasn’t right, something was out of place. Something was wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Despite the foreboding title, this is happy fic. I promise. Not too long ago, I did some bad things to Rodney, this is my way of making it up to him.

It started when John stepped out of the shower. Something wasn’t right, something was out of place. Something was wrong.

 

He took a deep breath and let it out, and then he wiggled his toes. Everything was working fine. He checked himself, everything was good. So it must be external.

 

He left the shower to find his radio beeping. There it is. He’ll put it on and one of those never-ending days will start; something to do with the Wraith or Genii maybe.

 

“This is Sheppard,” he said in to his radio.

 

“Something is wrong,” Rodney’s voice, a little panicked.

 

“What’s wrong,” he asked cautiously.

 

There was a pause. “I don’t know,” he said, “it’s– it’s,” and John could see just him waving a hand, trying to mould a picture, “It’s weird, like anaphylaxis without the shock.” He could hear him take a deep breath.

 

“I’m on my way to the debriefing room; I’ll tell Elizabeth and Ronon, you get Teyla and Carson, I’ll meet you there.”

 

***

 

“Something’s wrong,” he told Elizabeth once they were all there.

 

“What is it, Colonel?” she asked.

 

“It’s like,” he found himself gesturing at his chest, “something’s wrong,” he finished lamely. He couldn’t describe it any better.

 

“And you all feel it?” she asked looking around the room.

 

“I do not feel anything,” Teyla said, concern wrinkling her brow.

 

“Me either,” Ronon said.

 

“Me too,” Elizabeth said.

 

“It’s like a mild panic attack,” Carson put in, and Rodney nodded.

 

John tried to take a deep breath again, but it was starting to get harder, it felt like his lungs weren’t expanding enough.

 

“Mild?” he asked, “It feels a bit more then mild.” He flattened his palm on his chest and pressed, trying to relieve the pressure, it was defiantly getting worse.

 

“Maybe it’s just the gene carriers?” Elizabeth suggested as John sat down.

 

“Oh!” Rodney said snapping his fingers and they could see the light bulb come on in his head. He rushed out without any other explanation, the others close behind, all except for John. Carson came back a moment later, Elizabeth on his tail.

 

“What is it Colonel?” he asked John.

 

“I can’t breathe,” he gasped and promptly fainted. A moment later an alarm came up from the control room. 

 

As Carson radioed for a gurney from his team, Rodney was telling Elizabeth that they had lost all of their power stations except one.

 

“It was the only one I could save,” he said, “Atlantis is going in to lockdown.”

 

“Why?” she asked as she watched Carson check over John.

 

“I think I know,” he said sounding breathless, “I’m on it.”

 

“Are you alright?”

 

“Yeah, I’ll explain later, how’s John?”

 

“He fainted, Rodney, do you know what’s going on?”

 

“It’s Atlantis, I’ll explain later, McKay out.”

 

She followed Carson to the infirmary, where he got his team to put John on a respirator and to check over him more thoroughly as he himself sat down, grabbing another doctor to take down the symptoms.

 

“Chest discomfort, increased heart rate, shortness of breath…”

 

“Carson,” Elizabeth said thoughtfully after he sent the other doctor away, “Rodney said that it’s Atlantis, could it be possible that the city is doing this to you?”

 

“Aye, it’s possible,” he said “I guess if we can access its technology with our mind, there’s no reason why it can’t work the other way round.”

 

Elizabeth sat down, lost in thought and looking at John.

 

Somewhere on the Southeast pier, Rodney was walking down a dark, damp corridor, Radek, Ronon and Teyla with him. He kept glancing at his tablet and directing them down a different corridor until they reached a dead end.

 

“I don’t get it,” Rodney said, “it says there is a room there but there isn’t! It’s just a wall!”

 

“Maybe it is hidden?” Radek suggested, getting a closer look with his flash light.

 

“Yes, thank you,” Rodney said sarcastically, “maybe it’s hidden.” He came closer too, touching what was defiantly a solid wall. “Help me,” he said to Ronon and Teyla who were standing back, “We’re looking for a– a panel or something that might go in or come out.”

 

After a few moments of poking and prodding there was a bang and Ronon had a piece of panelling in his hand.

 

“Found it,” he said.

 

“What?!” Rodney said, high pitched, “you can’t just rip things out of the wall, I said if it moves!”

 

“It did move, I moved it,” Ronon said and before Rodney could reply he continued, “there are wires and things.”

 

“You– what?” he said, coming to take a closer look, and several long minutes of arguing later, Radek and Rodney came to a conclusion.

 

“OK?” Rodney said impatiently.

 

“Yes, yes,” Radek said doing a couple of last checks on his own tablet, “go ahead.” And he stood back.

 

Rodney took a deep breath and touched the two crystals together.

 

For a moment nothing happened, then the wall shimmered and there was a flash of blinding light.

 

Teyla was the first to recover. “Rodney,” she said breathless, looking at the wall.

 

Rodney squinted at her and then turned to the wall. Where the wall used to be.

 

Inside, there were ZPM’s. Stacks and stacks of ZPM’s.

 

 He heard Teyla radioing Elizabeth and Radek whisper something in Czech, but they all seemed to be coming from a distance.

 

The whole room. Filled with ZPM’s. He reached out slowly and let his finger brush the closest one. It was real. 

 

“Oh my God,” he heard himself say and things rushed back to normal speed. He grinned at Radek, who was grinning back and he could feel the laughter bubbling in his chest and soon they were both in hysterics. ZPM’s! Dozens of ZPM’s! And right under their noses too!

 

***

 

“And they were just lying there?” Elizabeth asked, later in the debriefing room.

 

“Yeah,” Rodney said, “can you believe it?” He couldn’t seem to wipe the grin of his face.

 

“Not quite,” she said, “how many did you say?”

 

“Dozens! Dozens and dozens!” he said, “There is someone down there right now, counting them.”

 

“So why didn’t we know about them before?” John, who had woken the moment the door opened, asked, “I thought you said you searched the data base and didn’t find anything.”

 

“It’s because it wasn’t in the database, either the Ancients didn’t want every one to know about it or they just put it up during the war and didn’t have time to put it in the data base. I don’t know! Does it matter?”

 

John gave a half shrug. “And you knew the room was there because…?”

 

“I saw a little blip, a small water leak in an empty room, it must be shielded from the rest of the city and it was at such a slow rate that I thought I’d get to it later, I only realised that it must be important when Elizabeth said it was the gene carriers and the blip had been getting more urgent and I thought it was a malfunction but the room has sensors that let us know when they are in danger and since we weren’t paying attention she made sure we did.”

 

“You’re saying Atlantis was calling you?” John asked.

 

“More or less, calling us, because the closer I got the better I felt, I bet she knew I was getting close, you probably fainted because you have the strongest gene expression.”

 

John crossed his arms and looked sulky. “I did not faint.”

 

Rodney grinned.

 

***

 

Even later, after everyone had looked at the ZPM’s and they had all been counted and tested to make sure they were all functional, Atlantis was silent and everyone was asleep.

 

Well, almost everyone.

 

“Rodney, this is so wrong.”

 

“Shh!”

 

“There isn’t any room.”

 

“I know there is.”

 

“Rodney…”

 

“John, come on, please?”

 

“Hey you are not allowed to use the pout against me, that’s my move.” There was a pause. “Alright, alright, just stop looking at me like that.”

 

Rodney grinned and opened the room, then closed it again once they were inside.

 

John lay down between the ZPM’s (ZPM’s! 156 full ZPM’s!) and pulled Rodney down on top of him, Rodney thought that this was the best day ever.


End file.
